Guardians, Go!

Greetings Fellow Dice Masters!

I want to start this post by saying that I hope all who celebrate it, had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! I hope you were all surrounded by family, friends, food, and games!

Tomorrow, my FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store) is hosting a Teen Titans OP Event. They are going to have at least four of them with the same prizes. These OP Events aren’t like the ones that have just one week’s worth of support. This gives folks several chances to try for a prize. Our Dice Masters group isn’t the biggest and we can all usually get a prize we want from these type of events. This makes for a very fun, casual tournament setting.

Our entries are only $1.00, or you have the option to purchase two Dice Masters booster packs as your entry. This helps the store move product and also helps players who may only have a few dollars and can’t afford to play in the OP Event and buy packs. Suggested format is a Rainbow Draft, but constructed works better for our group most of the time. We do some limited events when we have time to plan them and allow our players to save the money they need for the entries.

With the great group of folks and the awesome store we play at, we are afforded the opportunity to play basically anything we want and not always play competitive. I made a Guardians of the Galaxy team back when Age of Ultron was released. I was torn between playing my new Spider-Man team or my Guardians for the OP tomorrow, but I think I’ve settled on my Guardians. I’ve played my Spider-Man team at every opportunity since the set released and I’ve only played my new Guardians build once. I really want to give it a good test run and this is my chance!

How the Team PlaysBeing that this is a dice game, naturally my plan doesn’t always go the way I’d like. But if the dice favor me, I have a specific way I like to play it.

I hardly ever purchase my Blue-Eyes and never purchase my Professor X. They are on the team specifically for their Globals. I don’t mind my opponents using these Globals because they can’t be used against me directly.

My plan is to buy Drax and Rocket as soon as possible. Rocket’s ability and Drax’s stats make them very aggressive attackers.

Depending on my rolls, after I buy two or three each of my Drax and Rocket dice, I try to buy at least one Star-Lord and/or Groot. Star-Lord will give my attacking Guardians a little extra punch and Groot helps on the defense a little. I prefer Star-Lord over Groot if I can manage it. Which one I buy really depends on my opponent’s team.

Gamora and Starhawk are backup dice for mid to late game. I use Starhawk as an additional attacker, at the earliest, mid-game. I don’t worry about my opponent using Gamora’s Global against me because my Rocket has such a weak defense and I don’t mind my Drax getting KO’d.

My opponents usually don’t like KO’ing my characters because of the Teamwatch abilities on Starhawk and Gamora. (Teamwatch: Teamwatch abilities happen when a character with Teamwatch is active, and you field another character who has the same affiliation as them.) I buy Starhawk over Gamora unless there is a big blocker or a particularly annoying character in my way. Starhawk is more beneficial for attacking when my opponent doesn’t have much resistance.

Hulk Out is an obvious choice as far as Basic Actions go. I can give my attackers Overcrush and potentially a +1A. You can’t go wrong with that, especially with a Rocket that’s could be attacking for seven damage or more.

But for those times that I roll my Rocket on level one, I want to scream to the heavens in agony. Luckily, I had room for Polymorph as my second Basic Action. There are other Basic Actions, like Invulnerability and Anger Issues that I could have put on this team, but I found those particular Globals being helpful to my opponents more-so than myself. Polymorph and Hulk Out seem to work best for me.

Potential ChangesI don’t have any changes that I want to make for the OP Event tomorrow, but there is a character that I prefer a different version of. Groot, We Are Groot would be much better for my Guardians team than my current Groot, or so I think. Having a +3D is a nice cushion on the heroic rear ends of my characters than just reducing one damage. Now, damage reduction is more beneficial if my characters are taking damage from multiple sources, but based on our local meta, Groot, We Are Groot is the way to go. Now to find one!

ClosingI love this team so much now that I have Drax. I tried a different version of Drax, but the cost was higher than I liked and that’s why I chose the one I did. I like the early game aggro with this team that has my opponent scrambling to defend and recover. With the other shenanigans that I can pull off with this team, I have lots of fun and hopefully keep my opponent on their toes.

I really enjoy playing casual teams more than competitive teams and this casual team is just so much fun with it’s Guardians of the Galaxy theme! This type of team would be great for any younger player that loves Guardians of the Galaxy and you can put a version of Moondragon in place of the Blue-Eyes if you don’t have one.